There is a glimmer of hope Australia might one day see nuclear power in its energy mix.Resources Minister Matt Canavan is hitting the fast-forward button and wants the destination of Australia’s first nuclear site settled before the next election.

“I would be chuffed if we can find a solution, we’re very close, we have two communities in South Australia that have voted in favour of considering a site.

“In a couple of months time, they will vote again on whether to accept our detailed proposal.

“I’m quietly hopeful, but it’s now in the communities hands.

“If we can’t find a site for low-level waste… the idea that we build a full-blown nuclear power reactor’s probably a pipe-dream.”

He tells Ben the reason government hasn’t acted on nuclear is that Australia has such easy access to other resources.

“We have cheap coal or gas, or we have in the past… so we haven’t probably needed to look for the alternatives as much as some other countries have been forced to do.

“We are the world’s largest producers of uranium but we don’t have any nuclear power plants here.”

FEDERALSubmissions about the proposed National Radioactive Waste Management Facility in Kimba or the Flinders Ranges. The Standing Committee on Environment and Energy are accepting submissions to the ‘Inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia’ until 16 September 2019. Please write your own submission or use FOE’s online proforma.

Nuclear facilities, including power stations and radioactive waste dumps, are now banned in Queensland.

Nuclear facilities banned under the Act include:

·nuclear reactors (whether used to generate electricity or not);

·uranium conversion and enrichment plants;

·nuclear fuel fabrication plants;

·spent fuel processing plants; and

·facilities used to store or dispose of material associated with the nuclear fuel cycle e.g. radioactive waste material.

Exemptions under the legislation include facilities for the storage or disposal of waste material resulting from research or medical purposes, and the operation of a nuclear-powered vessel.

1 FEDERALSubmissions about the proposed National Radioactive Waste Management Facility in Kimba or the Flinders Ranges. The Standing Committee on Environment and Energy are accepting submissions to the ‘Inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia’ until 16 September 2019. Please write your own submission or use FOE’s online proforma.

Australia has long rejected nuclear power, and it is banned in Federal and State laws. The nuclear lobby is out to first repeal those laws, and then to get the Australian government to commit to buying probably large numbers of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) . This could mean first importing plutonium and/or enriched uranium, as some reactor models, (thorium ones) require these to get the fission process started. That would, in effect, mean importing nuclear wastes.

There’s an all-too short period for people to send in Submissions to the 4 Parliamentary Inquiries now in progress.